6-05-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #37

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

LETTERS TO THE DEAD

One really useful function of writing is how it can transform something awful into its opposite, something healing and cathartic.  In some ways, I’d call it a trick o’ the trade, but that sort of cheapens the magic, doesn’t it?  Anyway, my life was saved by being a creative writing major.  I am sure this technique was one of our writing exercises.  Anyway:

Here’s a letter I wrote to Tommy a few months after he passed away.  It’s still a work in progress, but every time I work on it, it brings me closer to him in a strange way. . .

(Brother Tom circa 1990, around the time of Carrie & Dan's wedding)

Hi Tom,

I suggested to Carrie to write you a letter -- it’d help her feel better about you and your death.  Writing about you is helpful -- therapeutic -- to me, but writing to you is also nice.  I am sure on some level you can hear these words, etched out in my notebook or even typed out on my computer.

Time to come clean: I live with knowing that I’ve thought of you dying the past year or two.  Every time we’ve spoken I’ve been sad, sensing you wouldn’t be around for too much longer.  Not that I was actively hoping for your death -- or wishing any harm to you.  I just knew you were sick and upset and struggling so.  I feel guilty admitting that I also thought that a few dollars from your estate would be an absolute lifesaver for me at this time if you did die, though.  So, in one way, I feel horrible for my thoughts: partly presentiments and hunches mingled in with a vague greed.

I just had a feeling you were going to die soon.  So it came as little surprise, partial relief, and certain guilt when we heard you passed away on Friday, July 29^th.  I was tremendously sad for you, but also glad you no longer had to live in that tortured mind and body. 

I hope you’ll forgive me for having those precognitions about you and not saying something. How can a person say such things?  Too weird.  You might have gotten really upset if I did.  There were times you wanted to die, I do know.  . . and every now and then, even a death wish is granted.

It wasn’t my wish for you.  I wish you peace, I wish you love.  I hope you find understanding -- which I’m sure you will, in the heaven you prayed for all those years on earth.

So thank you, Tommy, and rest in peace. I really mean it.  By the way, I forgive you for hurting me.  I won’t forget, but I will forgive and try to understand.  Sorry if I hurt you, too.  

Love, Laurie  (PS - I’ll always be your sister)

6-04-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #36

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

UNLUCKY?

Just as some people believe in destiny and others not at all, the world is sometimes divided into those who believe in luck, and those who do not.  Based on five decades plus of lifelong  observation -- keen at certain moments -- I’ve had my share of all kinds of luck.  I believe: 1. some people are lucky, and some are not, 2. You can try to make your luck, but there’s a basic pattern you can’t buck, and 3. Circumstances, personality, and hard work usually meet in a nexus that some call luck -- but if that crucial element of REAL luck doesn’t figuratively kiss that happy triumvirate, fuggedaboutit.  You’re unlucky.

My brother, Tom, seemed to be one of the unlucky ones.  He was mentally, then physically, sick.  On top of that, he was awkward socially, athletically, and circumstantially.  Sure, he had a family who loved him but we also didn’t understand him and some of us were scared of him.  Did he have the endearing personality to stand out and be chosen for some of life’s choicer turns?  Did he have the necessary talent to be recognized for his guitar playing and music?  In all honesty, no -- and no.

In most ways, Tom was the unluckiest person I knew.  But, luckily (!), he knew that God loved him and he clung to that belief almost all of his life.  True to his name, Thomas, he had moments of doubt.  But a big part of every conversation went like this:

“You know, Laurie, I have some troubles, but I’ve made peace with my God.  Or, he’s made peace with me.  We’re all right.”

“That’s good, Tom.  I’m glad to hear that.  I’m sure that God is glad to hear that.  Lord knows, you haven’t had it easy in this life.”

“We-l-l-l, that all depends on how you look at it--“

“So, you’re keeping your eye on the donut, you mean?”  I was remembering one of our father’s favorite little sayings: “As you go along in life, my friend, and try to reach your goal/Keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole.”

“What’s this about donuts?  Are you trying to make me hungry?  All I’ve had today was a lousy slice of pizza, and it wasn’t even that good.  Did you know I can’t have sugar any more?  I’m diabetic.  I have to drink diet soda.  That’s pretty horrible.”

“Oh, man.  Just your luck, huh?”

“Laurie, what do you mean, just my luck?”  In seconds, Tommy’s mood turned.  Around this time, I figured maybe he had some kind of affective disorder, maybe something bipolar because he got angry so fast, seemingly out of nowhere. I’d been around that kind of person before.  I wanted to get off the phone -- quick.

“Uh, nothing.  And the donut thing was just something dad used to say. . .”  With my unlucky brother, you not only had to pick your battles, you had to pick your figures of speech quite gingerly.  

6-03-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #35

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

Even though Tommy started out with a violent psychotic episode and I wrote in “Ode to Northern,” a line about  “Because you became sometimes violent,” it is a relief to know that, according to the NIMH, schizophrenics aren’t considered a violent bunch. . . In her book, Ben Behind His Voices, Randye Kaye quotes Christine Adamec from How to Live With a Mentally Ill Person: 

Basic Nature Counts

“While many people with mental illness act in unusual and unpredictable ways, they do not often strike out at someone. One of the best indicators of whether an individual has the potential to be violent is past history.  If a person has never been violent, he or she is very unlikely to be so in the future.”

And now, the NIMH weighs in:

Are people with schizophrenia violent?

People with schizophrenia are not usually violent. In fact, most violent crimes are not committed by people with schizophrenia.⁷ However, some symptoms are associated with violence, such as delusions of persecution. Substance abuse may also increase the chance a person will become violent.⁸ If a person with schizophrenia becomes violent, the violence is usually directed at family members and tends to take place at home.

The risk of violence among people with schizophrenia is small. But people with the illness attempt suicide much more often than others. About 10 percent (especially young adult males) die by suicide.^9,10 It is hard to predict which people with schizophrenia are prone to suicide. If you know someone who talks about or attempts suicide, help him or her find professional help right away.

People with schizophrenia are not usually violent.

6-02-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #34

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

So, according to the above negative symptoms, lack of pleasure or “anhedonia” (one of my favorite words) is one of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia.  I felt that much of the time when I was sick with anorexia.  And when I’m at my most depressed, that’s what happens: I can’t feel pleasure in life, which makes me feel more depressed, which makes me panic, which makes me consider . . . well, signing off, permanently. 

That’s why I thank God for music and writing.  Even if there are no other pleasures in life to be found, when I retreat into my own space and mind, when I pick up an instrument, sing and play music, I can heal myself with words and music.  I can get frantic, not having time to myself, because at heart I’m an introvert who needs that time apart.  Do I talk to myself?  Oh yes.  But hearing voices?  Uh uh.  The words that come to me when I write are inspired but not . . . hallucinations.

On to more info about Tom’s mental illness from the NIMH site, focusing on Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

When does schizophrenia start and who gets it?

Schizophrenia affects men and women equally. It occurs at similar rates in all ethnic groups around the world. Symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions usually start between ages 16 and 30. Men tend to experience symptoms a little earlier than women. Most of the time, people do not get schizophrenia after age 45.³ Schizophrenia rarely occurs in children, but awareness of childhood-onset schizophrenia is increasing.^4,5

It can be difficult to diagnose schizophrenia in teens. This is because the first signs can include a change of friends, a drop in grades, sleep problems, and irritability—behaviors that are common among teens. A combination of factors can predict schizophrenia in up to 80 percent of youth who are at high risk of developing the illness. These factors include isolating oneself and withdrawing from others, an increase in unusual thoughts and suspicions, and a family history of psychosis.⁶ In young people who develop the disease, this stage of the disorder is called the "prodromal" period.

. . . according to Randye Kaye, new research is linking autism to schizophrenia.  Makes sense, doesn’t it? 

6-01-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #33

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

Time for a reality check: do I have these sorts of symptoms?  Did I ever?  No, no, and -- no. The only thing I do is make up words, those “neologisms.”  For a wordsmith and a lyricist, that’s not such a bad thing, now is it?

On to more info about Tom’s mental illness from the NIMH site, focusing on Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

Negative symptoms

Negative symptoms are associated with disruptions to normal emotions and behaviors. These symptoms are harder to recognize as part of the disorder and can be mistaken for depression or other conditions. These symptoms include the following:

•               "Flat affect" (a person's face does not move or he or she talks in a dull or monotonous voice)

•               Lack of pleasure in everyday life

•               Lack of ability to begin and sustain planned activities

•               Speaking little, even when forced to interact.

People with negative symptoms need help with everyday tasks. They often neglect basic personal hygiene. This may make them seem lazy or unwilling to help themselves, but the problems are symptoms caused by the schizophrenia.

Cognitive symptoms

Cognitive symptoms are subtle. Like negative symptoms, cognitive symptoms may be difficult to recognize as part of the disorder. Often, they are detected only when other tests are performed. Cognitive symptoms include the following:

•               Poor "executive functioning" (the ability to understand information and use it to make decisions)

•               Trouble focusing or paying attention

•               Problems with "working memory" (the ability to use information immediately after learning it).

Cognitive symptoms often make it hard to lead a normal life and earn a living. They can cause great emotional distress.

5-31-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #32

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

As the information from the NIMH website is so useful and straightforward, I’ll add some more for my readers, hoping it’s stuff they’d want to know. . .

What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?

The symptoms of schizophrenia fall into three broad categories: positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive symptoms.

Positive symptoms

Positive symptoms are psychotic behaviors not seen in healthy people. People with positive symptoms often "lose touch" with reality. These symptoms can come and go. Sometimes they are severe and at other times hardly noticeable, depending on whether the individual is receiving treatment. They include the following:

Hallucinations are things a person sees, hears, smells, or feels that no one else can see, hear, smell, or feel. "Voices" are the most common type of hallucination in schizophrenia. Many people with the disorder hear voices. The voices may talk to the person about his or her behavior, order the person to do things, or warn the person of danger. Sometimes the voices talk to each other. People with schizophrenia may hear voices for a long time before family and friends notice the problem.

Other types of hallucinations include seeing people or objects that are not there, smelling odors that no one else detects, and feeling things like invisible fingers touching their bodies when no one is near.

Delusions are false beliefs that are not part of the person's culture and do not change. The person believes delusions even after other people prove that the beliefs are not true or logical. People with schizophrenia can have delusions that seem bizarre, such as believing that neighbors can control their behavior with magnetic waves. They may also believe that people on television are directing special messages to them, or that radio stations are broadcasting their thoughts aloud to others. Sometimes they believe they are someone else, such as a famous historical figure. They may have paranoid delusions and believe that others are trying to harm them, such as by cheating, harassing, poisoning, spying on, or plotting against them or the people they care about. These beliefs are called "delusions of persecution."

Thought disorders are unusual or dysfunctional ways of thinking. One form of thought disorder is called "disorganized thinking." This is when a person has trouble organizing his or her thoughts or connecting them logically. They may talk in a garbled way that is hard to understand. Another form is called "thought blocking." This is when a person stops speaking abruptly in the middle of a thought. When asked why he or she stopped talking, the person may say that it felt as if the thought had been taken out of his or her head. Finally, a person with a thought disorder might make up meaningless words, or "neologisms."

Movement disorders may appear as agitated body movements. A person with a movement disorder may repeat certain motions over and over. In the other extreme, a person may become catatonic. Catatonia is a state in which a person does not move and does not respond to others. Catatonia is rare today, but it was more common when treatment for schizophrenia was not available.²

"Voices" are the most common type of hallucination in schizophrenia.

I’ve just figured out that the title of Randye Kaye’s book, Ben Behind His Voices, makes total sense because of the last statement from the NIMH website on Symptoms of Schizophrenia.  Brilliant!

5-30-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #31

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my personal fears, too. . . .)

The other day, I interviewed Communications Professional, Randye Kaye (she’s an actress, voiceover artist, radio personality -- and author).  Her book, Ben Behind His Voices, is about her schizophrenic son who had gradual onset schizophrenia between the ages of 16 - 19, approx. 

Until a patient has a full blown psychotic episode, it’s impossible for the mental health profession to render a diagnosis. . . and so many of the early diagnoses for Randye’s son were all wrong. . . at least my brother, Tom, was diagnosed early on, I believe.  But forty-odd years ago, the medications weren’t anywhere near as good as they now are. . . and I’m almost certain that the meds Tom took had a profound affect on his physical health, probably shortened his life.  Sad.

At any rate, here’s some useful information from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from www.nimh.nih.gov:

What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has affected people throughout history. About 1 percent of Americans have this illness.¹

People with the disorder may hear voices other people don't hear. They may believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. This can terrify people with the illness and make them withdrawn or extremely agitated.

People with schizophrenia may not make sense when they talk. They may sit for hours without moving or talking. Sometimes people with schizophrenia seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking.

Families and society are affected by schizophrenia too. Many people with schizophrenia have difficulty holding a job or caring for themselves, so they rely on others for help.

Treatment helps relieve many symptoms of schizophrenia, but most people who have the disorder cope with symptoms throughout their lives. However, many people with schizophrenia can lead rewarding and meaningful lives in their communities. Researchers are developing more effective medications and using new research tools to understand the causes of schizophrenia. In the years to come, this work may help prevent and better treat the illness.

5-29-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #30

But then, it changed -- and food was most definitely NOT my friend.  Being a pudgy kid, I resolved, as a teenager, to never have that problem, again.  I’d sooner starve than gain back the weight I lost when I was fifteen -- over 40 pounds in six months, it was.  I thought I was doing pretty great.  Sure, I couldn’t focus, couldn’t shake the headaches, needed to sleep a lot.  My stomach hurt, too.  I filled myself with diet sodas (like my favorite, TAB), broths, tomato juices, sauerkraut juice, coffee and tea with skim milk and Sweet ‘n’ Low.  I allowed myself 600 calories a day, if that, and no meat at all.  This was my vegetarian period.  Speaking of which, around this time, I stopped getting my period.

I’d go into Richer’s bakery at the Marathon Parkway service road to the Long Island Expressway with my dad on Sunday mornings, when he’d buy a box of bakery treats for mom, Carrie, and me, I came face to face with the enemy: velvety cheesecakes topped with strawberries, blueberries or cherries; sumptuous Charlotte Russe with the little turbaned tops, maraschino cherry-kissed; German chocolate, glazed bundt, banana-maple walnut cakes; inch-thick black and white butter cookie disks, five inches in diameter; pastel-iced petit-fours, seven-layer Viennese tortes ten inches high, twelve inches across.  Displayed there also, in the bakery case, were blueberry muffins done to a moist, tawny, sugar-dusted magnificence, and one-serving strawberry shortcakes so compelling to the eye that the tastebuds of even the most devoted of aesthetes could but groan with desire.

My favorite treat, though, were the Richer’s bran muffins, baked with molasses and extra amounts of plump black raisins.  They were square in shape, about three inches in diameter.  I allowed myself this treat once a week -- and it substituted as a meal.  These muffins could easily be cut into small, bite-sized pieces and slowly eaten, in solitude.  I’d start by cutting the muffin in half.  Then, I’d make three cuts across the top, and another three cuts the other way so that I’d wind up with 18 delicious little bites of the most decadent bran muffins, ever.  Some Sundays, when I was really hungry, I’d make four intersecting cuts across the top, making me a total of 32 little bites. 

Then I’d chew, slowly, washing it down with a large iced coffee with Cremora and Sweet ‘n’ Low.  I’d read sections of The Sunday New York Times, in my basement room, secretly snacking on my prize -- that amazing molasses raisin bran muffin from Richer’s.  I was leery of anybody watching me eat because I thought they were making fun of me, talking about me. . . eating seemed revolting to me while I actually did revel in the occasional guilty pleasure.

It was easy, weighing 85 pounds, having one’s “cake” and eating it, too. . . if only my damned head didn’t hurt so much!

5-28-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #29

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

The summer I was seeing Jon, I had plans to switch high schools from Bishop Reilly to the big public high school, Cardozo.  I was thrilled to enroll in a place where you didn’t have to wear uniforms, the boys and girls studied together in a class, and my Jewish friends -- Jon’s friends I’d met, and the kids from the Samuel Field Y program -- were all there. 

I only got to go to Cardozo because I figured out how to get kicked out of Bishop Reilly High School: you had to flunk religion class.  That was easy!  After returning to school once I recovered from mono, I’d sit with crossed arms at my desk in religion class and not even touch any of the materials that the nun teaching the class distributed.  I know it was rude, and felt kind of bad, but my “righteous” anger about being kept in a dismal, repressing place like Bishop Reilly got the best of me and I didn’t want to be there, period.

I started going to Cardozo, and fell in with some girls who loved the band Poco.  We’d go over one of their houses after school and sew or embroider patches on our jeans.  It was quite the craze that year: elaborate patches and embroidery.  I liked to sew, so it was a fun thing to do.  I also started sewing some of my own clothes out of old pieces of cloth and used jeans -- like halter tops with old Girl Scout badges (I’d been a Junior and Cadette scout).  Cool.

My sophomore year in high school is when I started my intense dieting regimen. . . and a friend introduced me to “black beauties” too.  Those were diet pills, very strong speed.  I think I started to kind of lose it. . . things started spinning out of control.  I was still pining over that awful boy, Jon.  I couldn’t help it. . . I felt so awful and I couldn’t rely on food to make me feel better. . .

Before I was a teenager, I’d eat piles of pancakes, shoveling ‘em in.  I’d eat three servings of desserts.  Devouring bags of Fritos chips, I’d wash ‘em down with 7-Up, the “uncola.”  I was one big girl who adored brownies, chocolate chip cookies, Milky Way Bars, Big Hunk nougat bars, Three Musketeers, Turkish Taffy. . . I also had quite the candy jones.

(Below: Grandma's Christmas cookies from her recipes.  MMM mmm yumboleenie!)

Before my teen years, I had double chins, thighs that chafed each other when I walked, and had to shop at the Lane Bryant Chubby girl shop.  I hated my body.  I couldn’t stop eating, and until I was fourteen, I didn’t. 

Food was my friend; not too many kids were. But then, and thanks to Jon breaking up with me, it changed. 

5-27-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #28

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

 For the entire summer I was 15, Jon and I spent every day together.  We never spent a day in our house, in Douglaston.  Mom wasn’t too happy about me going to Bayside every day, but she usually drove me there or picked me up.  Eventually, she and dad decided that Jon was a bad influence.

Good call!  Too bad they didn’t figure that one out sooner.  And once Jon tried to visit me at night and climb up the side of the house to the upstairs bathroom window (probably because of that Beatles song, “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.”  We might have made a dare, something silly).  My parents found out and then called his mom and it was a mess. 

Things were getting bad between Jon and me, anyway.  He broke up with me unceremoniously one day -- the darkest day in my young life.  I couldn’t stop crying; so attached to him, the separation was painful.  That kind of hurt is so terrible. . . which is why I am glad that the kids in my family aren’t getting too serious about anybody romantically, yet.

(Family portrait around when I was ten or twelve.  Dad is, of course, behind the camera.  There I am, little pudgy kid on the left, buck teeth, diastoma, and all.  Tommy looks demented -- shape of things to come.  Mom looked thin -- she'd been on a yo-yo diet again and this was in one of her "skinny" years, and Carrie, far right, is just the happiest, lovingest little girl -- she's still remarkably content in life. . .)

Why didn’t he love me any more?  He couldn’t say.  But I thought it was because I was too fat.  All right, I could do something about that.  I could go on a diet.  I’d already shed about 20 pounds before meeting him; couldn’t I do that again, and better?

If I looked like a beautiful, svelte model -- a lovely waif like our friend Kenny Cohen’s sometime girlfriend, Carol, whose Mona Lisa smile and ballerina-thin figure made me cringe with envy -- maybe I could win Jon’s love back. 

So that’s when I decided that strict dieting -- and extra exercise -- was what I needed. 

5-25-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #26

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

My brother, Tom, wasn’t much for sunbathing, either -- which was good once they put him on thorazine, stellazine, whatever else.  Meds and exposure to sunlight aren’t exactly happy cohabitants.  I also don’t know anything about Tom’s dating life, and whether he had girlfriends when he was a teenager.  In his twenties, I once saw him with a young hippieish looking woman, with long, blonde, wavy locks and wild eyes. . . but that didn’t last.

Although for the most part uncoordinated, Tom tried his hand at tennis.  He’d go across the street, to the parking lot by the St. Anastasia’s rectory, and hit the ball against the wall over and over.  I remember the “thwock!” sound of the ball hitting the racket, and the “pong” sound of the ball hitting the wall.  Every now and then, when nobody else was there, I’d borrow a racket and some balls and try my hand at hitting the tennis ball against the wall. 

It seemed like half the time, a ball would bounce up high and get stuck, up on the roof in a crevice between roof sections of the old rectory building.  That was discouraging; it was hard to come across more tennis balls, us being kids who couldn’t easily get to a sports supply shop.  Dad or Tom would grab a ladder and climb up to retrieve balls from the roof once in a while. . . it seemed dangerous and comical, at once.  I even went up on the ladder, but was scared: I don’t like heights.

We lived in Douglaston, Queens.  About two miles away, in the Douglaston manor section of our town, a young tennis player named John McEnroe was burning up the court, so to speak.  I don’t think brother Tom ever got over there, though: the Douglaston Club was pretty exclusive, and we were solidly middle class, not upper middle.  We were on the wrong side of the boulevard. . . Northern Boulevard.

Actually, our house was within 100 feet of that busy, four-lane road (the only way to get to northern Long Island until the Long Island Expressway was built in the 1930s or so).  At night, we could hear the cars rumble by, almost like a lullabye.

5-24-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #25

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

At any rate, once Jonathan and I met and became friends, he’d call me on the phone and we’d have these marathon talks, really silly ones, but great: he had a way with words and joked around, and a deep, sexy voice.  But at the same time, he had a silly giggle, and that was endearing, too.  I definitely fell for him, hard.  And, for a while, he was in to me, too.

We couldn’t see each other in person till I got over mono and school was out for the summer.  But once late June rolled around, he’d take the bus down from Bayside, walk a half mile down Douglaston Parkway, and visit me a few times. 

Eventually, I would go and visit him.  His parents divorced, his mom worked during the day and was away from the apartment (I think she was a social worker or therapist), so we could go there and fool around.  We’d play Beatles records (The White Album, Sergeant Pepper’s, Abbey Road) and, well, fool around.  Jon’s mom had muesli cereal in the kitchen cupboard, and once I tried that (stirred in a bowl with a little milk) there was no going back.  I loved it!

We became young lovers, an inseperable twosome.  Jon introduced me to some older friends of his -- like me, he was precocious in body and mind -- who also lived in Bayside.  One of them had a garden apartment and was a rabbinical student.  At any rate, we spent more and more time there, listening to the Beatles, Firesign Theater, and the Mothers of Invention, having bizarre discussions about anything and everything, eating delicious junk food. . .

We also went to the beach one time with one of Jon’s older friends, driving in his car.  We sat out on a beach blanket in the sand, from morning till late afternoon, in the bright early July sun -- no beach umbrella.

 My skin sunburned so lobster-red it blistered and peeled on my back.  When I got home, I cried and cried, in pain.  My grandma was there, and she put a poultice on it, tsk-tsking about kids these days.  For days, I couldn’t move without almost screaming.  Bad, bad sunburn.

THAT is why I shun the sun with a righteous fear.  My whole life, I’ve never sunbathed, and I seek the shade at all times.  You may smile and say, “Oh, how nice, the sun is out!” and I’ll just keep my words to myself with an inner smirk, “Yeah, nice, hot, hurtful, damaging sun.  Stay away from me!”

. . . Turns out a lifetime of sun-shunning was a really good move: I have few complaints about sun-damaged skin now, in my later years.  Very few wrinkles, too. . . . 

5-23-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #24

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- mostly about my psychotic brother and his legacy.  It touches on my fears, too.  Here’s the part that I talk about my experience growing up, and some of the factors contributing to my early teen breakdown. . . This is the painful stuff for me, bad choices, stupid moves. . .)

Growing up Catholic and with a conflicting need to confess and self protect, there are times I’ll blab things that are perhaps too personal.  IN a memoirist or any kind of really intense writer, that’s good.  On the other hand, like that marvelous saying, “When in doubt, don’t.”  That is why I’m gonna hold back now. . . but I’ll hint at stuff; that will have to suffice.

The senior boys at Bishop Reilly thought that I was “interesting” indeed: a chubby/zaftig, spirited, overly friendly young woman with long straight brown hair, big brown eyes, clear skin, precocious vocabulary.  I wore lots of mascara and, of course, had that very adorable plaid Catholic schoolgirl skirt that I hiked up to mid-thigh once I left the girl’s side of Bishop Reilly High School. 

I went on dates with a few of them, and also met an older guy who had a car.  We drove to Jones Beach in March or April of my freshman year at Reilly, made out a lot.  It was very cold, and not comfortable. I just remember him paying me the compliment, “You don’t kiss like a 14-year-old.”

A month later, I got very sick, with “mononucleosis,” the kissing disease.  Catching mono meant I was not only very sick but also highly contagious and so, I was out of school for several months.  Then, when I got back to school, there only a few weeks of school were left.  I was OK catching up with the schoolwork, but I HATED Bishop Reilly and didn’t want to continue.

I’d met a pretty messed up guy who I thought was really cute, named Jonathan,  at a program at the Samuel Field Y in Little Neck.  The program was for kids who were acting wild, and offered counseling and group therapy for wayward youth.  Being very concerned about me, my mom drove me there twice a week, once to see Mel Goldstein for one-on-one talks, and another time for group sessions with other kids.  Mom meant well, but meeting Jonathan sealed my fate and sent me in a direction in life that I’d probably have been better off steering clear of.

It was then I realized my kinship with the Jews; I loved that whole gemutlicheit, everything about Jewish culture.  There’s that warmth, intellectualism, love of books, self-deprecating sense of humor. And best of all -- the guys are generally into “shiksas” -- the non-Jewish girls.  Although not a blue-eyed blonde shiksa, I had a cute nose and boobs.  They dug it.  And I liked being around non-Catholics.  I found my people. . . or so I thought.